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Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Review & Giveaway: Love Saves the Day by Gwen Cooper

Gwen and Homer. Image courtesy of www.gwencooper.com.

You know how
when you're reading a really good book, you will find any excuse to sneak away
and read endlessly for hours?Reading
a book during TV commercials, reading in between class breaks, sneaking away to
your room during dinner. Those are just a few of the things I did to
readLove Saves the Day by
Gwen Cooper.

I’m excited to offer a giveaway of Love Saves
the Day, autographed by Gwen Cooper! Details will be listed below the review! Links to Gwen's website and purchasing her books will be below.

Image courtesy of www.gwencooper.com.

Love Saves the Day is an amazing story about Prudence the cat. One day,
Prudence's owner Sarah doesn't come home. Prudence goes to live with Sarah's
daughter, Laura and her husband Josh. Prudence doesn't understand why Sarah
left her and hopes she will come get her soon. This is a tale of love, hope and
how animals help you heal.

The book is broken up into three parts, from the viewpoints of the kitty
Prudence, daughter Laura and the mother, Sarah. I love books that are told in
different perspectives because it gives the reader more than one way to look at
the story being told.

I especially love the fact that the majority of the book was narrated by the
kitty, Prudence. Gwen really captivated how cats "think" and act. For
example, Prudence is taken to the Bad Place, which the reader can immediately
identify as the vet's office.

Many things Prudence said had me grinning and thinking of my own cats.

-"I fix him with an icy
stare and swish my tail to remind him of his manners."

-"I think Laura's trying to
trick me into not noticing, so that one day soon she can put down just the new
food and none of the food I like. As if that would fool a cat!"

-"I learned that water
that's been standing still for a long time usually tastes bad. Now I like to
rattle my water bowl with my right paw before I drink from it, so I can see the
water move and keep it tasting fresh. Sarah understood this and only filled my
water bowl up halfway."

After
Prudence said the thing about the water, I started to wonder if my cats thought
that way! I asked my mom - she had just read Gwen's book - and she agreed,
wondering the same thing.

After
readingLove Saves the Day,it is evident that Gwen did a
lot of research on the "Mitchell-Lama" buildings that a portion of
the book is about. The events that happen in chapter 13 (I would love to write
a summary but I don't want to give any good plot details away!) "are a
fictional creation and not intended to accurately depict real events" as
Gwen states in the Author's Note.

I wondered
how Gwen knew about Mitchell-Lama buildings and the history of the building
mentioned in the book. It turns out that Gwen’s husband Laurence moved into a
Mitchell-Lama building when he first moved to New York, 25 years ago.

“Honestly, New York is such a
crazy, crazy market for real estate (with such insanely high rents) that you
always have a general awareness of people you know who've lucked into great
deals, like something that's rent controlled or an apartment, like a
Mitchell-Lama apartment, that participates in a City program to maintain
affordable rents for middle-class tenants. Once I decided to work the
program into the book, I did some research and also spoke with attorneys
who specialize in both assisting tenants who live in Mitchell-Lama buildings
and who represent developers that want to buy the buildings and opt out of the
program,” she said.

I kept up to date on Gwen’s Facebook fan page
for Love Saves the Day (which you can find here) and I knew that just three weeks before her deadline, she changed a
massive portion of her book.

It turns out that Gwen tossed out 80% of her
book – which had taken her two years to write.

(Reader Note: Before you read on, there
will be a little plot detailed here that might give away parts of the story, so
please read at your own risk).

“In a nutshell, I felt that I was
over-plotting Prudence. Originally I had a storyline that had her much
more actively searching for Sarah. The problem was that to translate that
search into action had me writing behaviors for her that weren't really
cat-like. For a book like this to work, readers have to really believe
that they're inside a cat's mind--and I felt that if I as the author didn't
believe what I was writing, readers wouldn't either,” Gwen explains.

Gwen went on to explain that ultimately,
Prudence has three "jobs" in the book:

1) To be adorable and funny and "catty;"

2) To narrate the human action and the day-to-day
lives of the other characters in the book

3) To heal over the course of the book from her loss
of Sarah as she gradually bonds with Laura and Josh and comes to consider them
her family.

After getting rid of 80% of the book, Gwen was excited that once she took
Prudence out of her own head a bit, all these wonderful opportunities opened up
for ways in which Prudence could engage the human characters.

For those who have read Love Saves
the Day, it’s needless to say that the changes Gwen made to the book
ultimately changed it for the better. This is an amazing story that will help
heal anyone with a broken heart, or just likes cats!

I am so glad that my mom had picked up Homer’s Odyssey that one fateful day in Barnes and Noble, otherwise
I might not be here reviewing Love Saves
the Day!

Gwen will delight readers with her new book, as it is really an
inspirational story.

I asked Gwen if she had a new book in the works and this is what she
said:

Me: And just to give
the readers of the review a sneak peak, do you have any plans for another book
soon! (ok, that question was for me too :-P!)

Gwen: I do have plans
to write another book, but nothing concrete enough to talk about yet.
Once the craziness of the tour dies down, I'll get back to you! :)

I leave my readers with one final thought from Gwen, which I will take to
heart with the rest of my writings:

“It pays to remember as a writer that sometimes the most important part
of writing is knowing when and what to ‘unwrite’”.

10 comments:

My favorite character in LSTD is Sarah. As a mom who has lived away from her daughter for long periods of time, Sarah's situation really got to me. She struggled to provide her daughter with a well rounded life, which reached far beyond material things, and Laura didn't understand this until the very end of the book. I loved the way Prudence opened so many locked doors for Laura and helped her heal her fractured memories of Sarah. Every morning I say to my cats, "Love Saves The Day." Thank you for an amazing story!

My favorite character in LSTD is Laura. Laura has a deep hurt that needs to be exposed as does Prudence. By Laura understanding Prudence's needs when Prudence faces near death situation she realizes that she too has a deep need to understand her mother and try to reconcile her feelings for her. Even though Sarah is dead, Laura finds what she is looking for when she understands how Prudence has found what she has been looking for since she no longer has her Sarah. I just loved the waay that the characters come together as the book title states Love Saves The Day. Rarely do you find a book that is so intuned through out that you do not loose the thought implied as you read through the different characters. Absolutely loved this book.

I forgot to leave my email address evdonjo@aol.com Hope it connects with the comment. I would dearly love an autographed copy of this wonderful bookE Macon Stogner March 8, 2013 at 11.03AM was my comment with Laura as my favorite character.

I'm honestly not sure I can pick a favorite as they all work together so nicely to bring the story full circle. They each are an important part of the book & each one brings something unique to the table. And, for the record, I still haven't recovered from the events in chapter 13.Thank you for the great giveaway.kataddikt at gmail dot com